I talked about it, it is on the outskirts of the Tarantula Nebula within the Large Magellanic Cloud. It is over 160,000 light-years away, not a distance to traverse casually.
The shockwaves are visible in this modern picture taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Such shockwaves compress nebulae and molecular clouds, seeding them with elements and driving star birth. This was how the Sun came to be.
The light from SN 1987-A reached earth in 1987, and was bright enough to see in the daytime. Unfortunately, it was only visible from the Southern Hemisphere.
I remember learning a lot about it when it happened. I was 11 when it happened.
Imagine the power of an exploding star. One of these days, it will happen to Betelguese, the 'right shoulder' of Orion. It is so big, if it replaced the Sun, it would engulf every planet out to Saturn. Astronomers say that it could have blown already and the light/energy has not reached our solar system yet.
One light-year is 3 trillion miles. Just thinking of such a distance is hard. The farthest human object in space, Voyager 1, is just 60 or so AU away and getting farther. An AU (Astronomical Unit) is the distance from the Earth to the Sun, 93 million miles. It should make it to a nearby star in forty or so millennia.
You can learn more about all this on Wikipedia or www.nasa.gov or ask me. Astronomy is my love. Has always been.
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